BUILD THE SCHEDULE - TECHNIQUES

Determine if You Will Capture Actual Effort Hours

A very early decision needs to be made as to whether you will capture actual effort hours on the schedule. For instance, let’s say you estimated an activity to have 40 hours of effort and ten days duration. It is easy to know when the activity is complete so you can compare estimated duration against actual duration. However, are you going to keep track of whether the effort was actually 40 hours?

Capturing actual effort hours requires much more diligence on behalf of the project team to keep track of their time per activity and report it back accurately. There is a lot of value associated with capturing actual effort hours, including helping make future estimates more accurate. However, many (most?) organizations do not capture the actual effort hours because of the work involved. If your organization does not capture actual effort hours, it will be difficult for a project manager to enforce this discipline on one specific project. Collecting actual effort hours is usually something that is required (or not required) on an organization-wide basis.   

Be Cautious About Having too Much Slack in the Schedule

There is only one path through the schedule that does not have any slack or float. This is the critical path and it will drive the end-date. Although every other path in the schedule has some slack, there might be some concern if there is too much slack. “Too much slack” means that the other paths have many long gaps when no work needs to be done. This can lead to a long “skinny” network diagram. Of course there may not be a problem with this occurrence. However, the potential implication of having too much slack in the schedule is as follows:

• Many resources are coming and going in and out of the project, and this can cause potential problems making sure everyone is available when needed and for as long as needed.
• If you use the same resources off the critical path, you may have to mix in non-project work for them when they do not have project work to do. You may assign them a few weeks of project work, then find other work for them during the slack time, and then make sure they are available for you again when they have more project work assigned.   
• There may be a lack of urgency on the part of all resources that are not on the critical pathIn other words, you have one or more resources working hard on critical path activities and end-dates, while everyone else has a lot of slack in his schedule. This can be de-motivating to the resources on the critical path.

Be Cautious About Having too Little Slack in the Schedule

Just as there is risk with having too much slack, there is also some risk associated with not having very much slack. If this happens, minor schedule slippages off the critical path could force these paths critical as well. Schedules without much slack off the critical path are more risk.

"Just Right" Slack

It would be better if the project schedule could be built in such a way that the non-critical paths were “full but not too full” so that a group of resources could be utilized more efficiently on the project.

Enter Work on Your Schedule in Chronological Order

Although schedule activities can be added in any order, it is easier to understand the schedule if you add the activities in chronological order. That is, the earlier activities should be listed first on the schedule and the later activities should be listed in the general order that they will be executed. As you enter the activities, you can also enter the dependencies, since these prior dependent activities should have already been entered.

Ten Steps

DEVELOPING THE BUSINESS CASE-PART TWO

Clients should also set a realistic and reasonable programme in the business case, which is likely to be attractive to the market place and attract competitive prices. The programme should identify all inter-dependencies as soon as possible so that the effects (delay or acceleration) can be identified immediately.

Clients should work on understanding risks, how to handle risks (including their impact on relationships) and their attitude for them before considering risk allocation, risk management and risk registers. Clients' insurers will also have a role in this aspect of a project.

Clients should operate a "live" risk management process which, in larger organizations, is facilitated by risk managers.

Clients should include a project risk register in the business case from an early stage and use it throughout the life of a project. It is widely accepted that effective risk management assists a business to achieve its objectives.

Clients should strive to develop their processes and experience in risk management.

The Client Brief should define what the client needs the project to achieve in order to deliver the success and values identified by the client's vision for the project. The Client Brief should also be anchored by the business case and should set objectives that are clearly within the envelope justified by the business case.

There can be different approaches in formulating the Client Brief. In some cases clients may have business related or functional performance related objectives and they may be open to how these may be realised. It is sometimes seen as an advantage to leave as much as possible open to allow creative or innovative solutions to be developed from those with skills or experience that clients do not posses. In such cases a "performance specification" approach should be taken.

In other cases clients may have a clear vision of how they see the project manifesting itself. They may already have completed similar projects and want many of the features of these incorporated. Then it may be more appropriate for a "detailed design" to be prepared.

DEVELOPING THE BUSINESS CASE-PART ONE

Clients of successful construction projects have a clear vision and delivery strategy from the outset. Clients need to identify the business requirements that a proposed project will fulfill and determine how the project sits within their overall business strategy. A clear vision for a project, which states the objectives and outcomes, is critical in justifying it in terms of investment and building the business case.

The objectives and outcomes should be tested as the project progresses to check that it is still on track and that assumptions made in the business case remain valid. The gateway reviews, which some clients use to check the status of their projects at different stages of their maturity, provide the opportunity to verify and validate that a project still meets the requirements of the business case. The reviews should be used to ensure that the strategic intent and objectives are still being followed and are still valid. A method known as "system engineering" can assist greatly with this approach and is becoming more widely used by clients.

Clients should ensure that the budget provided in the business case is realistic and delivers best value. They should use whole-life costing, which involves considering planning, development, implementation, operation and decommissioning cost from the outset.

Sustainability and health and safety aspects should also be considered for a project as a whole. Value engineering is a tool which should be considered throughout a project to ensure that the most economically advantageous methods and materials are used and that the appropriate quality is being maintained. 

DESIGN BRIEF

How many times have you been in a position to fight with architects for the scope of work or design brief?

Have a look at the following article!

 Dear Mr Architect,

Please design and build me a house. I am not quite sure of what I need, so you should use your discretion. My house should have somewhere between two and forty-five bedrooms. Just make sure the plans are such that the bedrooms can be easily added or deleted. When you bring the blueprints to me, I will make the final decision of what I want. Also, bring me the cost breakdown for each configuration so that I can arbitrarily pick one.

Keep in mind that the house I ultimately choose must cost less than the one I am currently living in. Make sure, however, that you correct all the deficiencies that exist in my current house (the floor of my kitchen vibrates when I walk across it, and the walls don't have nearly enough insulation in them).

As you design, also keep in mind that I want to keep yearly maintenance costs as low as possible. This should mean the incorporation of extra-cost features like aluminum, vinyl, or composite siding. (If you choose not to specify aluminum, be prepared to explain your decision in detail.)

Please take care that modern design practices and the latest materials are used in construction of the house, as I want it to be a showplace for the most up-to-date ideas and methods. Be alerted, however, that kitchen should be designed to accommodate, among other things, my 1952 Gibson refrigerator.

To insure that you are building the correct house for our entire family, make certain that you contact each of our children, and also our in-laws. My mother-in-law will have very strong feelings about how the house should be designed, since she visits us at least once a year.

Make sure that you weigh all of these options carefully and come to the right decision. I, however, retain the right to overrule any choices that you make.

Please don't bother me with small details right now. Your job is to develop the overall plans for the house: get the big picture. At this time, for example, it is not appropriate to be choosing the color of the carpet. However, keep in mind that my wife likes blue.

Also, do not worry at this time about acquiring the resources to build the house itself. Your first priority is to develop detailed plans and specifications. Once I approve these plans, however, I would expect the house to be under roof within 48 hours.

While you are designing this house specifically for me, keep in mind that sooner or later I will have to sell it to someone else. It therefore should have appeal to a wide variety of potential buyers.

Please make sure before you finalize the plans that there is a consensus of the population in my area that they like the features this house has. I advise you to run up and look at my neighbor's house he constructed last year.

We like it a great deal. It has many features that we would also like in our new home, particularly the 75-foot swimming pool. With careful engineering, I believe that you can design this into our new house without impacting the final cost.

Please prepare a complete set of blueprints. It is not necessary at this time to do the real design, since they will be used only for construction bids. Be advised, however, that you will be held accountable for any increase of construction costs as a result of later design changes.

You must be thrilled to be working on as an interesting project as this! To be able to use the latest techniques and materials and to be given such freedom in your designs is something that can't happen very often. Contact me as soon as possible with your complete ideas and plans.

PS: My wife has just told me that she disagrees with many of the instructions I've given you in this letter. As architect, it is your responsibility to resolve these differences. I have tried in the past and have been unable to accomplish this. If you can't handle this responsibility, I will have to find another architect.

PPS: Perhaps what I need is not a house at all, but a travel trailer. Please advise me as soon as possible if this is the case.